As the devastating first wave of Russia’s attack on Ukraine recedes, leaving corpses and decimated lives in its wake only miles from a major European capital, Ukrainians are gathering evidence of Vladimir Putin’s “alleged” war crimes and the world is asking how and why this horror unfolded. 

Inside Russia, though, a playbook of sorts has been making the rounds of social media in recent days, to the probable delight of its publisher, the Kremlin-backed RIA Novosti news agency. It came under the guise of an article titled — wait for it — “What Russia should do to Ukraine.”

The article’s author, a blurred visionary by the name of Timofei Sergeitsev, wrote that “the peculiarity of modern, nazified Ukraine is in its formlessness and ambivalence, which disguises Nazism as a desire for ‘independence’ and a ‘European’ (Western, pro-American) path of ‘development’…. The denazification of Ukraine is also its inevitable de-Europeanization…. ‘Ukronazism’ poses a much bigger threat to the world and Russia than the Hitler version of German Nazism.” 

A piece in Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, assails this and the rest of the text as “Russia’s Chilling Manifesto for Genocide in Ukraine.”

It is doubtful the article was required reading for the Russian troops — who by all credible counts were the ones torturing and executing Ukrainian civilians in Bucha and other shattered towns around Kiev as they beat a retreat (and perhaps also before they retreated) — but its publication underscores just how badly contaminated is the public discourse, or what is left of it, in Russia right now.  

This kind of 21st century Newspeak, which itself reeks of Nazism, is the rule and not the exception in almost every Russian news outlet that the Kremlin has not shut down. 

The bizarre manifesto is a deliberate weaponization of language that leaves no room for the truth, at least not inside Russia. The scope and consequences of this kind of poison are not in the least bit theoretical. Rather, they are reflected in the embers of Bucha and Borodyanka and Irpin, where hundreds of lives were snuffed out with unremitting cruelty; in the bombed out city of Kharkiv; in the virtually flattened city of Mariupol; and elsewhere. Following are updates on some of these places in what is a badly wounded but also, contrary to any toxic Kremlin-sanctioned manifesto, modern and resolutely defiant Ukraine:

Borodyanka: An estimated 200 people were buried alive in basements after Russian planes dropped half-ton bombs on 10 apartment blocks in the town in early March, according to local authorities cited in the Kyiv Independent newspaper. Those who perished had been hiding in the basements when the bombs fell. Borodyanka is 25 miles northwest of Kiev. 

Berestyanka: Correspondents from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on the scene in this village outside Kiev, which had been commandeered by Russian forces as a base, have uncovered evidence of war crimes against civilians including rapes, shootings, and an execution. The ABC reported that Russian soldiers used women and children as human shields in a neighboring occupied village.

Bucha: Ukraine has accused Russia of perpetuating a massacre in this town 15 miles south of Berestyanka, which seems to have borne the brunt of the civilian casualties suffered at the hands of Russian forces in their failed five-week attempt to storm the capital. At least 300 of the 410 bodies found in villages around Kiev were here. Of those found, 50 were the victims of extrajudicial killings carried out by Russian troops, the deputy mayor, Taras Shapravskyi, said. President Zelensky said an unspecified number of corpses were mined by retreating Russian forces.

Kharkiv: Following the destruction of a thousand buildings, Le Monde called Kharkiv a “disfigured” city, where many families have sought refuge in the metro to escape Russian bombardment. The owner of a zoo in the war-torn city has taken a heartbreaking decision to put down all the large animals including tigers and lions, The Independent reported, to prevent Russian shelling from letting them loose in the city.

Trostianets: On a two-day visit to this town just 20 miles from the Ukraine-Russia border, a reporter from the Guardian found evidence of summary executions, torture, and looting.

Mykolaiv: On Monday, Russian shelling killed 11 people in this southern city, nine of whom died at a public transport stop in the city center, according to the regional governor, Vitaliy Kim. Last month a Russian cruise missile attack on a government building in the battered city left at least 36 civilians dead.

Mariupol: The city’s mayor, Vadym Boichenko, said Wednesday that more than 5,000 civilians have been killed during the month-long Russian blockade. According to Mr. Boichenko, 210 children were among the dead, and 50 people of unspecified age were burned to death in hospitals bombed by Russian forces. On Wednesday British military intelligence said fighting and Russian airstrikes continued and that “most of the 160,000 remaining residents have no light, communication, medicine, heat or water. Russian forces have prevented humanitarian access, likely to pressure defenders to surrender.”

The more evidence that comes forth about such atrocities, the more strenuously Russia denies them. On Thursday morning, RIA Novosti reported that several thousand Ukrainian “militants” remain in Mariupol. As for the 5,000 Ukrainians killed by Russian bombardment and artillery fire there since the start of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, there was no mention.